Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

Posted Jan 14, 2014 19:25 UTC (Tue) by ewan (guest, #5533)
In reply to: Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes) by lbt
Parent article: Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

"Of course this is indeed a *yawn* to anyone who's principles demand that they only use a GTA04 style device"

It's a *yawn* to those of us that had N900s as well. And Sharp Zauruses before that. If it's not fully open, it's a dead end, and it will die. A good chunk of the Jolla people were involved with the N900 effort too, so they know exactly what happened to that, and there is no excuse for them taking the same attitude and approach again.

The _only_ potential selling point of the Jolla devices is their free-softwarey-ness, and they're barely better on that front than just buying a Nexus, and a whole lot worse in other ways.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

Posted Jan 14, 2014 21:41 UTC (Tue) by dilinger (subscriber, #2867) [Link]

Exactly. This isn't just about priniciples, this is about being pragmatic. I liked the N900 UI (much moreso than android's UI). However, since it wasn't open, it has simply disappeared from my life. I find myself cursing at android's UI (well, Cyanogenmod) daily, but at least it is open. When I upgrade to my next phone, the same UI can/will await me.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

Posted Jan 15, 2014 10:44 UTC (Wed) by dsommers (subscriber, #55274) [Link] (5 responses)

The jolla phone is in my experience not more closed than N900, I'd probably say more likely a bit more open. Not completely open, but still open enough to be the most open phone OS in the market today.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

Posted Jan 16, 2014 10:20 UTC (Thu) by ewan (guest, #5533) [Link] (4 responses)

It's a closed UI on top of an openish middle, on top of closed drivers, just like the N900 was. Is there any reason to believe it's not going to go exactly the same way?

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

Posted Jan 16, 2014 13:39 UTC (Thu) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link] (3 responses)

What makes this different from N900/N9? Well, SailfishOS and the Jolla phones are not products from a company whose CEO would not possibly allow the success of a Linux-based system...

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

Posted Jan 16, 2014 14:36 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (2 responses)

Didn't Elop show up after the n900/n9? What stops Jolla from having an Elopolypse?

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

Posted Jan 16, 2014 15:07 UTC (Thu) by lbt (subscriber, #29672) [Link] (1 responses)

Never say never :)

OTOH the company is small enough and the vision and strategy are so opensource oriented that it's inconceivable at this point.

Also bear in mind that much of the code and tooling is derived from MeeGo and that Mer, Nemo and Qt are all fully open projects; the ability to survive Elop-style management has already been demonstrated - and that's actually a risk-management selling point.

Jolla Review: Some Rough Edges, But This Linux Smartphone Shows Promise (Forbes)

Posted Jan 16, 2014 16:37 UTC (Thu) by ewan (guest, #5533) [Link]

"the vision and strategy are so opensource oriented"

...that they're keeping important chunks of the code closed.